Pages

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Iran in Sochi

7 to 23 February 2014 Iran will be at the winter olympic of Sochi in Russia. Iran is mostly successful in summer olympics with resettling, weight lifting, and Taekwondo however Iran would be having its Largest team ever among all the winter olympics with five athlete in the two sport of Alpine skiing and Cross country skiing. Saveh Shemshaki, Mohamad Kiadarbandsari and Forough Abbasi will be the three athlete representing Iran in Alpine and for cross country Sattar Reza Seiied and Farzaneh Rezasoltan will represent their country.

The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, or the 22nd Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event being held in Sochi, Russia.A total of 98 events in 15 winter sport disciplines are being held during the Games. A number of new competitions—a total of 12 accounting for gender—are being held during the Games.The 15 sport present during the winter Olympics can be viewed here in the official website of the Olympic games.

As a Persian living outside the country many people ask me if there is snow in Iran and if it gets cold or do people ski in Iran. I have to say I personally love skiing and I consider it my first sport since I started it at the age of 5. The capital City of Iran, Tehran is so rounded by two mountain range, Alborz and Zagros. This city has 6 ski resort around it which makes it have warm summers and cold winters.

Iran has been to 16 summer olympics and 10 winter olympics, in many summer olympics we have been successful mostly in Wrestling, Weightlifting and Taekwondo however we have never one any position in winter olympics. Over all we have one 60 medals; 15 gold, 20 silver and 25 bronze. From the 15 gold medals 13 of them are earned in Wrestling and Weightlifting. In the previous summer olympics Iran had the rank of 17 among countries and won 4 gold medals, one in weightlifting which was for the heaviest weight lifter of the olympic and 3 in wrestling which one of them was the heaviest weight champion of the world. Sadly one of the mans who brought glory and pride to country quit from being a professional athletes, Behdad Salimi.

At the2010 World Weightlifting ChampionshipsSalimi won the gold medal in the +105 kg category.Salimi won gold again in the +105 kg category at the2010 Asian Gameswith a 205 kgsnatchand a 235 kgclean and jerk.Salimi won the gold medal at the 2011 World Weightlifting Championships in Paris, France on November 13, 2011, and set a new snatch world record of 214 kg.Salimi became the 2012 Olympic gold medalist in the +105 kg category on August 7, 2012 with a 208 kg snatch, a 247 kg clean and jerk for a total of 455 kg.After 2012 London Olympic games he and other Olympic medalists of Iran protested against Iran's national weightlifting team head coach Kourosh Bagheri for using offensive language in training and declined to attend national team exercises. As a result of a heavy argument on a live TV debate between Salimi andKourosh Bagheri, the Iranian Weightlifting Federation dismissed Salimi and other weightlifters, who later on sided by Salimi in public and did not invite any of the London medalists for the 2013 Asian Weightlifting Championships and 2013 World Weightlifting Championships.

Writing about olympics and weight lifting I should mention the name Hosein Rezazadeh,Rezazadeh is a 2 time Olympic champion, 4 time World Weightlifting champion, and 2 time Asian Games champion. He is also a world record holder in the clean and jerk and total, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest weightlifters of all time. He has won the Iran sportsperson of the year award more than any other person. In total he has won 11 gold medals for different international championships.